Dr. Sherri Lawson Clark has co-edited and contributed a chapter to a volume entitled Contemporary African American Families: Achievements, Challenges, and Empowerment Strategies in the Twenty-First Century, published by Routledge. This volume addresses how the black community has been perceived as one which thinks alike, acts alike and lives alike – in poor and downtrodden environments. Following the persistent effects of the great recession and the American elections of 2008, now more than ever the political and socio-economic state of America is crying out for this deficient and prejudiced conception to be dispelled.

Focusing primarily on black families in America, the book updates empirical research by addressing various aspects including family formation, schooling, health and parenting. Exploring a wide class spectrum among African American families, this text also modernizes and subverts much of the research resulting from Moynihan’s 1965 report, which arguably misunderstood the lived experiences of black people during the movement from slavery to freedom in a Jim Crow society.

Dr. Clark’s chapter, “Home is Where the Wealth is: African Americans and the Housing Debacle,” traces the legacy of homeownership among African Americans, a group who mostly were excluded from the benefits of homeownership, both tangible and ideological, until the passing the Fair Housing Act in 1968. This chapter relies upon empirical studies focusing on African American homeownership and wealth accumulation guided conceptually around French Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s social production of space and concludes with a paradigm shift for African Americans that include homeownership along with other forms of investments to expand wealth.